Sweet Child O' Mine
by Kanskje the Titanium Bovine
Summary: Pickles wrote a song about a girl when he was young. She's gone now, though, and the words are for Toki alone. teen!Pickles/OC; Pickles/Toki
1. She's Got A Smile That It Seems To Me

A/N: This is more of my retarded logic at play: Since Snakes N' Barrels is totally Guns N' Roses in the Metalocalypse universe, GNR songs would still totally exist, except that instead they would be SNB songs (alongside SNB-specific songs like Kill You and Water Horsey Blues). Totally. Anyway.  
I made Maxxine up on the spot specifically to use her for this and then kill her off before the end. Hope you like.

* * *

She had had dark brown, almost black hair, a nice smile, and light blue eyes. Her mother had died when she was young and her father was a cruel, drunken man. At first she'd been a friend of Seth's, but she'd had the great idea to share a joint with her friend's quirky little brother who for some reason went by the name Pickles. She had just turned 14, and he was 10 at the time. She would quickly become better friends with Pickles than with Seth, easily getting tired of Seth's egotistical jackass behaviour. Her name had been Maxxine, and she'd been Pickles' first love.

He wrote songs about her. That's what he wanted to do, he'd said, be a songwriter and singer in a band someday. She'd laughed and wished him luck in their shitty town. He'd told her that he planned on running away to LA someday. It was a plan many, if not most, people had in the 80's, and she didn't really believe him, but she told him that if he ever did it to grab her on his way out. They could run away together.

After the huge, stupid fight with his father that had gotten him kicked out after he'd already made up his mind to go anyway, he'd found her in Sara Park sitting under a tree. She had turned 20 just recently, had gotten fired from her job the week before and had spent every night in the park since. He was crying and screaming obscenities about his father when she saw him, but she didn't mind. She welcomed him with a hug, asking what had happened and why he was carrying a bag. He'd told her everything, and she'd been quick to tell him to wait there, she'd be right back. And she was, in just under half an hour she'd run home, packed her things, and run back, smiling and holding a bus schedule. They'd left that night.

Along the way they'd gotten off the bus in northern California, where Pickles had bought his first Les Paul. The next bus wouldn't arrive until morning, so they shacked up in some seedy motel on the little money they had. They'd spent the evening laughing and talking and thinking up guitar parts for the lyrics Pickles had already written. Maxxine had turned out to be pretty good at it. When the evening darkened to night, and they lay awake talking and hoping, they went from talking to kissing and finally to making love. They'd taken the bus the next morning straight into LA, and they both quickly set out for work.

Maxxine had gotten a job as a waitress that payed for the small apartment her and Pickles shared the first few months there. The day he came home yelling and crying from happiness was a great day for them both – he'd had his final audition that day. He'd met an Italian guy who had talked to him and gotten him in to audition for the band he and two friends were forming, and he'd wowed them. He told her that he couldn't stay long, that they expected him to be someplace at 5, and they were so happy.

LA changes people, though. Snakes N' Barrels started to get big. They'd landed a contract, they were producing an album. Pickles and Maxxine hardly saw eachother anymore. He didn't know for two weeks that she'd been fired from her waitressing job because he was never home. He didn't know that she'd gotten a new job for a month because he was on his first tour. He didn't know for two months that it was a job as a stripper, because she was good at keeping secrets.

Likewise, she didn't know that he'd become an alcoholic in the relatively short time they'd lived there. She didn't know how bad an influence Snakes N' Barrels was on him until he came home one night hopped up on heroin. She didn't know for the longest time that he'd been cheating on her, but it also wasn't a surprise to her – she'd been doing it too.

They both knew when they'd stopped loving one another. They knew when the time apart was tearing them apart. They couldn't stop it. Pickles wasn't going to leave the band for Maxxine and frankly she didn't want him to. He was happy, she could tell. And LA changes people. Pickles, this kid who'd grown up abused in Wisconsin had one day hopped a bus to California and become a rockstar in a month. Maxxine, this girl who'd grown up abused in Wisconsin had one day hopped a bus to California and become a whore in a month.

Because LA changes people.

Because people grow apart anyways.

Because they'd spent the best days of their youth together, but the best days of their future simply didn't involve one another. And the bitter-sweet memories of childhood days spent in the park lazily smoking pot and cigarettes and just watching the swans would follow them for the rest of their lives, the kind of memory that no matter how good you have it off now, no matter how amazing your life may be, you want it back because there was familiarity in it, and your soul was rooted in it because if it wasn't for that, you wouldn't be who you were today.

Pickles may never have become a rockstar.

Maxxine may never have wound up dead.

It was news that had never reached Pickles. They hadn't spoken in nearly eighteen years – God, had it been that long? – and she was just another nameless prostitute working the LA streets. As far as Pickles knew she was still alive, but he hadn't even thought of her in almost ten years. Except for on those late-summer days when the days were getting shorter and the leaves were getting ready to change, and the swans would be swimming lazily in a pond somewhere. He'd sit under a tree and smoke and watch the pond and try to remember her. Tried to remember her name, or her face, but he couldn't quite think of it.

She had had dark brown, almost black hair, a nice smile, and light blue eyes. That's all he could recall.


	2. Where do we go, now?

A/N: This half is the half that takes place current-day and is full of all the Pickles/Toki I'm sure you've come to expect from me. It's less sad too.

* * *

Toki was taking a late-afternoon nap in his room, his back pressed up against the cold wall and Deddy Bear held securely in his arms. Charles had coaxed the band into recording earlier, and seven hours of recording, then re-recording, then being yelled at and re-re-recording, then being yelled at _and_ berated by Skwisgaar and re-re-re-recording before finally being shooed out so that Skwisgaar could re-re-re-re-record the rhythm parts was an exhausting, slightly depressing ordeal. But it was commonplace, and Toki took the abuse with a smile and a roll of his eyes like he always did. He had retreated to his room afterwards, being followed quietly by Pickles who knew that after seven hours of abuse even the ever happy Toki would need some cheering up. He'd followed the rhythm guitarist into his room, and immediately complained (jokingly, of course) about the temperature.

"Gad, Toki, yer room's feckin' _freezing_!" he'd said with a smile, sitting down on the Norwegian's bed next to said Norwegian. They'd had the usual back-and-forth of 'why can'ts I bes fasters?' and 'well at least ya still play wit' passion, nat jes' speed.' Toki held his hands in front of him and complained about the slowness of his fingers and Pickles had taken the guitarist's hands in his, kissing the calloused fingers and reassuring Toki that "They ain't slow. Even if dey were, I love 'em anyway." Toki had smiled like Pickles knew he would, and the guitarist's fingers twined with the drummer's as he leaned in and kissed the older man. Then he'd rested his head gently on Pickle's shoulder and mumbled about how tired he was, and Pickles had let him lay down and got up to leave, promising he'd wake Toki up for dinner. Toki had thanked him, and Pickles placed a kiss on Toki's forehead before leaving.

Toki hadn't been able to sleep right away, though, the silence of the room getting to him. He'd turned on a radio and, what with death metal not exactly being the best at putting people to sleep, had switched around stations until he'd found some classic rock channel. Although he'd said that 80's music wasn't his cup of tea, after the Snakes N' Barrels reunion tour he'd given the music a chance and found that he actually did like some of it. It was soothing if nothing else. The station he'd fallen asleep listening to also had a habit of, about every six hours or so, playing a Snakes N' Barrels song, and hearing Pickles sing tended to make the Norwegian smile. One time, walking back to Mordhaus after deciding that Pickles' idea to "go to th' park an' look at swans" wasn't exactly a bad idea and doing just that, they had wandered past a house that seemed to be having some sort of party going on. As they passed they heard the unmistakable sound of a Snakes N' Barrels song wafting through the walls and into the street. Nathan had laughed and joked at Pickles, while Skwisgaar didn't recognize it until Nathan placed Pickles in front of him and motioned to him, then at the house, then back at the drummer, but as the group walked by Toki felt perfectly content to stand in his spot on that sidewalk and listen to the song play out, which he would have had Pickles not grabbed his arm and tugged him along gently, his trademark smirk on his face, and Toki had continued walking after Pickles had whispered to him, "Why ya wanna stand dere an' list'n frem sem house when ya gat the real Pickles right here in frent o' ya?" Which was, of course, a perfectly solid argument.

That same song was one this station didn't play as often as ones like Water Horsey Blues or that one about the jungle. As Pickles quietly knocked on Toki's door to wake him up, that was exactly the song that happened to be playing, though. It had lulled Toki into a nice enough sleep that Pickles' knocking was doing nothing to wake the young man, so the drummer gave it up in favour of simply walking in. He opened the door just enough to slither in, and he let out a little chuckle as he heard his own voice floating from the radio singing about some girl with a nice smile and sky-blue eyes. He honestly couldn't remember exactly who he'd written the song about any longer, it had been so long ago.

He crept to Toki's bed and knelt down next to it like a child getting ready to pray. He rested his chin on his arms on the bed and watched his guitarist sleep for a moment before reaching over and gently shaking his shoulder. Toki curled up slightly, not exactly wanting to wake up just yet. Pickles sighed and rolled his eyes, smirking as he walked over to the radio and turned the volume down to null. He returned to his spot next to Toki's bed and tried to shake him awake again, and it seemed to work a little more as the sleeping man tried to shrug Pickles' annoyingly persistent waking away.

"Toki, kid, get ep. It's dinner. Ye're genna wake up hengry at like midnight if ya don't eat now." The half-awake Toki responded by making a shoo motion with his hand. "Faine den, be dat way." Pickles said with a shrug, standing but not moving from his spot. He had to admit, the Norwegian was quite lovely when he slept. Giving the muted radio a glance, he reached over to Toki and moved the hair out of his face. He quietly began singing the chorus of the song that had been playing, and Toki finally opened his eyes. He blinked at Pickles at first, but smiled as his heart fluttered, as the term "love" floated quietly from Pickles' lips in reference to him. He sat up and pressed his lips to the ex-singer's, cutting off the drawn-out syllable of the last word of the short chorus. Pickles pulled away after a moment and asked, with a smirk, "Ya awake yet?" Toki nodded with a smile.

"Ja I'ms ups now Pickle."

"Good, our dinners're gettin' cold out there." He helped Toki up and, as they walked out to the hall, he whispered to him, "You've gat eyes of th' bluest skies too yanno."

-Later-

After dinner the whole band was rather bored. Nathan had suggested they, "Watch some awesome brutal horror flic or something," and since no one could think of anything better to do they'd gathered around the largest tv in the main room and watched some movie that wasn't anywhere near as brutal or awesome as Dethklok themselves, but did its job as a horror flic. It also did a very pleasant job at being an excuse when Nathan questioned how close Toki was cuddling against Pickles during the movie, or when Murderface asked why Toki was following Pickles into the drummer's room afterwards.

"I'ms scareds they's gonna comes gets me," Toki said, an excuse that would have been totally implausible in any other case, but seemed perfectly suitable in this context to his bandmates who simply shrugged. Of course that was a lie, and as soon as the door was closed and locked securely behind them, Pickles pulled Toki down on his bed and kissed him, straddled him, pushed him onto his back. During the day they had to dodge around their bandmates, not quite ready to tell the rest about their relationship. But the night was theirs. And at least one of those nights a week, in one of their rooms and behind closed, locked doors, they made love.

-Even Later-

The sheets were pulled up to their chests as they lay together, the night air settling a chill over Mordhaus. Toki was laying half next-to, half on Pickles, his arms wrapped around the older man's torso and his head resting on his chest. Pickles was gently playing with Toki's hair, his eyes closed contentedly and a cigarette held loosely in his lips, though not yet lit. The room had been silent for quite a while, the two musicians simply laying together, not quite trying to sleep but getting coaxed into it by the soft night.

Pickles' lighter technically broke the silence when he flicked a flame to life on it to light his cancer-stick, but Toki was the first one to speak. He smiled a little and nuzzled Pickles' neck as he said quietly, not quite a whisper, "You shoulds sing to me." Pickles blew a few smoke rings at the ceiling before answering.

"Oh yeah? An' why's dat?" Toki shrugged.

"'Cause I likes yous voice." Pickles raised an eyebrow.

"'S dis 'cause 'f earlier when I woke ya ep?" There was a short silence before Toki replied.

"...Kanskje." Pickles rolled his eyes but he smirked at the young man laying on him.

"Fine, fine." He dragged on his cigarette before he started singing, an odd habit he'd picked up because he liked the way the smoke looked as it was sung out. Toki listened intently and silently, the smile on his face never wavering. Even though the song had been written about a girl, she was in the past, and Toki knew Pickles was singing especially for him now. The drummer continued petting his guitarist's hair as he sung, his fingers straying down to gently flutter against Toki's cheek. And that chorus – Pickles felt Toki's heart beat harder through the second line and he made a mental note to refer to his guitarist with the line occasionally. As he sang into the next verse, his fingers gently trailed past one of Toki's blue eyes and back into his hair. He stroked it gently before nuzzling it with his cheek, moving back into the chorus that Toki so loved, feeling his own heart beating faster with Toki's, and just as soon to the end.

By the time he'd finished his song (and his cigarette), his skin tingled, his fingers tightening around whatever they were touching (Toki's hair and the sheet beneath him, respectively), and his breath nearly shuddered. The way he felt now was ten times stronger than the feeling he'd had when he'd first sung the song to the girl it was written for. At the same time, he was almost certain he'd lulled Toki to sleep. However, Toki was very much awake, though deep in thought. The song ended in a question, a question that had been very real when Pickles had written it, and it was a very real question when he sang it to Toki as well. Toki had certainly noticed when Pickles had faltered at the end, speaking the last repetition of the question instead of singing it, his body shivering in a mix of uncertainty and pure, loving bliss. He had assumed Toki was asleep and was honestly asking himself the question, but Toki had caught it and was fully prepared to answer. He tilted his head back and looked up at Pickles, to the slight surprise of the drummer.

"We gos... forwards?" He said, not quite sure of himself. Pickles wrapped his arms around Toki and nodded, his eyes once again closed. "We gots to tells them, huh?" Pickles nodded again.

"Tomarrow... er maybe Thersday." he chuckled quietly, and Toki smiled a little. "Sleep ferst though," he said, placing a soft kiss on Toki's lips. Toki snuggled up against his drummer.

"God natt, Pickle," he said quietly. Pickles smirked.

"Yeah, g'night... sweet love o' mine." Toki's heart beat harder as he fell asleep.


End file.
